2016 Syracuse Retro Game Con

Submitted by Vince on
Wed, 11/09/2016 - 11:08

Early Saturday morning on the 5th of November 2016 Drew Bentley and I headed to Syracuse New York to attend the Retro Game Con. This is the first true video gaming convention that 3D game Market has participated in. The Con was held in the On Center right in Downtown Syracuse and was a beautiful venue. We had no problem getting set up and were excited to share Fallout 4 in glasses free 3D. We also had a few more games up our sleeve like Batman Arkham Knight, Gauntlet, and Dragon Age Inquisition. Plus for the kids we set up Castle of Illusion featuring Mickey Mouse. We displayed the games on our 4K 50” glasses free 3D display and showed Castle of Illusion on a 2D monitor in our anaglyph format which lets you play the game in 3D on a 2D monitor using the red and blue 3D glasses.
After getting set up I had a few minutes to walk around and check out all of the other vendors. There was quite a few vendors with a lot of the really cool retro gaming stuff. It was great seeing the original Atari, Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and other early consoles as well as all the games and accessories that went with them. There was even a Mario fish tank being auctioned off. Of course I had to buy a ticket for that. One of my favorite vendors was there right across from us. Kris Lovins from Sony PlayStation was demonstrating the PlayStation VR headset which looked very cool. He is a great guy and this is the second show that we both were at set up right next to each other, so we had the chance to chat with him all day.

At Nine AM the VIP’s were let in an hour before the doors opened for everyone else. Like all the other shows that we have done we attracted a crowd right away. The guest were pleasantly surprised to see our brand new tech among all of the retro stuff. You never get over the reaction of the guest when they realize they are seeing the game in 3D without having to use glasses. The comments are awesome to listen to and they really appreciate what we are doing. The diversity in ages always surprises me, we have guest from four years old all the way up to seventy and older. Video Gaming is timeless and attracts all ages. I left Drew in charge of the booth for a bit and walked downstairs past the band and into the gaming room. Upstairs was where the vendors were selling their wares but downstairs is where the fun was. They had all of these old systems like the NES, Super Nintendo and tons of other systems set up with people competing in tournaments and just playing the retro games. There was arcade and pinball machines lining the walls and it was a ton of fun looking at all of the activity that was happening in that room. In the room next to that they had some board games going on. I loved it. In the late afternoon I went off to find Thor Aackerlund, the 1990 Nintendo World Champion who was a guest at the show. I found him and told him about our glasses free 3D gaming platform. He was very interested and later stopped by our booth. He really enjoyed what we were doing and I traded contact information with him. He is a great guy and one of my favorite things about doing these shows is meeting people like Thor. Near the end of the long day Drew and I each took a turn trying out the Sony VR and really enjoyed that. Besides having the VR headset they also had a display hooked up so people that were not wearing the VR gear could also watch the game that was being played. I thought about how cool it would be to have one of our 3D displays hooked up so the people not wearing the headset could enjoy the game in glasses free 3D. This is definitely something we will look into. Before you knew it the day was over and Drew and I headed for our hotel to get some much needed rest.

Sunday was not quite as busy as Saturday but there were still quite a few guest and we got to have some good conversations with them about gaming. A couple of groups did video interviews of us to help spread the word about our glasses free 3D gaming platform. We took turns walking around and made sure that we got to see everything that was going on. I talked several times to my friend Troy Naida from Rainy Toad Gaming. We have done several shows with Troy and really enjoy Talking with him. The afternoon came and went and it was time to break things down. We had a chance to talk with the promoter of the show and he let us know that we were a big hit and he wanted us to come back next year. That was good to hear and we are definitely excited about returning in 2017.